Shot Between the Eyes
& More Jayhawking

The next day we marched back to West Port four miles south of Kansas City. Here Pete Dickies, of our company barely escaped death. He was pulling his gun out of our camp wagon, where for some reason he had put it while on the march. He had hold of the mussel, and in drawing it out from among the baggage it was discharged. The ball struck him between the eyes, but so high, that instead of penetrating the skull, it slid along it, inflicting only a long scalp wound.

A few days later we marched to West Point, thirty-five miles south. It was over a rolling country interspersed with wooded creeks and sparsely settled. Every house along our line of march but one was burned, and off on the left flank for miles, columns of smoke from burning houses and barns could be seen. West Point was but little more than a name on a prairie beside a little creek skirted with timber. We camped in the timber. We had a baggage train for our tents, mess boxes, rations and ammunition, of the 30 wagons--six mules to each wagon. We also had two four mule ambulances. The train did not move with us except when we moved camp.